«
No society can exist without morality.
There is no true morality without religion.
Thus, only religion can give a firm and
durable support to the state. A society
without religion is like a ship without
a compass »

Napoleon
I.

Bonaparte
the restorer of faithsRepresentatives of different religions prostrate
themselves before God, thanking the First Consul for
having given them free exercise of their beliefs. Popular
stamp.

Church
Historian,
Laureate of the French Academy
and of theArts and Letters
of France;Chair of the Historical Committee of the
Mexico-France Napoleonic Institute

Renée
Casin

Translation by
Mr. Jonathan House.
Notes and comments by the MFNI,
with Madame Casin’s kind approval.

Napoleon
took his first communion at Brienne; he retained a particular
gratitude for Father Charles Patrault, who had prepared
him for this ceremony. While traveling to assume command
of the Army of Italy, General Bonaparte considered it
a matter of duty to turn aside and shake Patrault’s
hand. As First Consul, Bonaparte sent him a pension
of a thousand francs together with a letter that read
in part: «I have not forgotten
that I owe the good fortune I have achieved to your
virtuous example and wise lessons. I commend myself
to your prayers». Later, he said in an
emotional voice: «Brienne
is my home. I was happy then».

During the first campaign
in Italy in 1796, after passing the Cadibone Pass, Bonaparte
halted with his officers at the first village, where
a magnificent church stood. To the astonishment of all,
he left them and pushed open the gate of the church.
For long minutes, he remained alone, meditating in the
sacred atmosphere where France was about to bring fire
and blood.
The government of the Directory instructed him to «
revolutionize » Italy. Yet, upon entering Milan,
he summoned the curates of all parishes to reassure
them that: «a people without
religion is like a ship without a compass!...»
The young, 27-year-old general sought only the pacification
of souls.

«
At the murderous clamours of a liar liberty,
the house of God is attacked. The French
nation gets covered by an eternal dishonour
by the most atrocious crimes [of
the French Revolution].
The head of the sweetest of princes [king
Louis XVI],
of his kinsmen, of his friends, rolls
from above in the blood. A chasm of innocent
blood is opened immense. Angels of Gaul,
trembling, fill it with mountains and
hills. Our Savior so pure is dethroned
by a filthy flesh. A merciless envy from
Hell! Horror! Execration! Devastation!From the bosom of the Mediterranean,
comes out an illustrious captain who raises
the Salutary Cross [re-establishment
of the Catholic Church]and gathers,
in his warrior hands, the sheep of the
sceptre [Consecration
and Coronation by H.H. Pious VII].
Like the Eagle, he flies and ascends with
too much pride. He presses the Saint of
the saints [the
Holy-See]
with his sharp talons. It’s
in vain. He himself is chained and audaciously
breaks his irons once [return from
Elba].
But contrary fortune ties him in the middle
of the waters [Saint-Helena]
untill death ». Prophecy (year
540) by Saint Caesarius of Arles
(c. 470-542), ed. 1525.

Let us move forward
several years, to the day after what is commonly referred
to as the «Coup d’état» of
18 and 19 Brumaire, Year VIII (November 9-10, 1799).
From his first days in office, the churches, which the
Directory had transformed into political meeting houses,
were reopened, as were the prisons. He went in person
to the famous Prison of Force in Paris to liberate the
political prisoners condemned by the defunct Directory…
In Guiana, hundreds of priests were rotting. All these
priests returned to France, as did the itinerant émigré
priests (sac-au-dos) beyond our frontiers,
men who had been washing their laundry in the streams…

Next, the First Consul
abolished the famous Civil Constitution of the Clergy
that, since 1790-91, required each Catholic priest to
swear allegiance to the state to the detriment of loyalty
to Rome. The Constitution also required the election
of priests and bishops by all citizens, even Protestants
and Jews!

The body of Pope Pius
VI, who had died at Valence as a prisoner of the Directory
and had been interred almost anonymously in the city
cemetery there, was transferred with great ceremony
to Rome. Bonaparte appealed for union, writing to the
leaders of the Vendée: «come
to me; my government will be that of youth and spirit».
In effect, the entire west of France had been systematically
ravaged after the Convention had issued a Decree
of Depopulation in 1793. The First Consul’s
investigators had listed 500,000 dead, of whom some
had been burned alive while locked inside churches such
as that of the Lucs commune in the Vendée. General
de Gaulle was perfectly correct when he wrote that “Napoleon
reassembled France with a TEASPOON».

Massacre
of the children of Petit-Luc
(Martyrs of Lucs-sur-Boulogne.)
Stained glass window in the Church of Saint
Peter of Lucs-sur-Boulogne by Lux Fournier

On
August 2, 1793, the Convention had the
following decree issued in the Moniteur,
the official organ of the state: «Combustible
materials of all kinds will be sent to
the Vendée to burn the woods, thickets,
and bushes. Forests will be razed; rebel
hideouts will be destroyed, the crops
cut down and the beasts seized. The
rebel race shall be exterminated,
the Vendée destroyed».

A
second decree of November 1, 1793, added
that «any city that receives brigands
or does not repulse them by all means
available shall be punished as a rebel
town, and in consequence shall be razed.»
By inventing concentration camps for refractory
priests (Rochefort), extermination camps
for the Vendéens (Noirmoutier),
and tanneries for human skins (Pont de
Cé), the government of the Convention,
by a series of abominable decrees, marked
the debut of the first genocide of the
modern era. The official and systematic
extermination of the Vendéen people
prefigured the holocausts of the twentieth
century perpetuated by regimes such as
German National Socialism, Communism,
or in Mexico the drama of the Cristeros.
On this subject, even the Jewish historian
Israel Eldad has remarked that «the
last stone taken from the Bastille served
as the first stone of the gas chambers
at Auschwitz», These words are justified
when one recognizes that, as Gracchus
Babeuf remarked, the Vendée was
only a «laboratory»; In effect,
as Vladimir Volkhoff has demonstrated,
the French government planned the extermination
of Brittany and the Bretons as early as
May 1795. The horror of this crime was
triggered by the twelve mobile columns,
known as the «Infernals» of
General Louis Turreau, who methodically
destroyed and exterminated the population
of that region in January 1795. The crimes
were unspeakable in this «great
national cemetery» decreed by Turreau,
who, according to his own words, sought
to «entirely purge this accursed
race from the soil of liberty».
The words of General Francois Westermann
were equally evocative in his description
of the panorama: «The Vendée
is no more! Citizens of the Republic,
it died under our sword of liberty, with
its women and children. I have just buried
it in the swamps of Savenay, following
the orders you have given me. I crushed
the children under the hooves of my horses
and massacred women who will not give
birth to more brigands. I have
no prisoners with which to reproach myself.
I exterminated everything . . . the roads
are strewn with cadavers. In several locations,
there are so many bodies that they form
pyramids». During Thermidor, the
young General Bonaparte, barely 25 years
old, received an order from the Convention
to go to the Vendée. After refusing
with great courage a directive both dishonorable
and contrary to his principles, he was
«struck» from the army list
by the Committee of Public Safety and
threatened by the guillotine for insubordination.
After his accession to power, the First
Consul was acclaimed by the Vendéen
crowd to cries of «Long live the
king, long live Bonaparte»(15 Brumaire
Year VIII). He dedicated himself to ending
this «impious
war» by decreeing an amnesty
on 7 Nivoise Year VIII (December 28, 1799).
He also implemented many measures of appeasement:
reconstruction of the region, reduction
of tax arrears, distribution of agricultural
materials, development of secondary education,
and lodging of priests at the expense
of the local government.

Tanned
skin of a Chouan
Exhibited at the Museum
of Natural Sciences
of Nantes

In
2003, a large demonstration
attempted –in
vain– to have
this piece removed
from public display
and to obtain from
the French government
an official recognition
of the genocide of
Vendéen and
Breton Catholics.
In effect, this sinister
episode darkened the
founding myth of the
French Republic. The
state has never wished
to recognize the hecatomb,
make an act of repentance,
or recompense the
damages done to victims
of this horrifying
carnage.

Ultimately, the Emperor Napoleon indemnified
the populations of the Vendée,
this «people
og giants», by exempting
these localities of taxes for fifteen
years beginning in 1808. That same year,
the Abbot Boursier, curate of Mouchamps,
declared: «Like Simeon, having seen
the redeemer of Israel, I can die content.
I have seen the pacifier of the Vendée».

The negotiations with
Rome to sign the CONCORDAT de
1801 of 1801 (1) were long and
delicate. What unadulterated joy for the Parisians –
after their cathedrals had been «scheduled for
demolition» and saved by heroic citizens, just
like the marbles of Saint Denis’ basilica –
to hear the great bell of Notre Dame toll on April 9,
1802, ringing a solemn TE DEUM
in the presence of the First Consul and other high officials
of the state. The echoes rang for dozens of kilometers
into the surrounding countryside. In the same place
where the revolutionaries had worshipped the «godess
of Reason» with an Opera singer appearing on the
high altar, now Bonaparte called the members of his
entourage to order!

The Church definitively
renounced its lands, sold as «national property»
and, in compensation, the state would pay the clergy.
The Vendée was pacified. The peasants of France
would remain legitimately grateful to Napoleon. The
same accords were signed with the Protestants. As for
the First Consul – later the Emperor – and
his wife Josephine de Beauharnais, who attended mass
every Sunday in the restored chapel of the Tuileries,
what about their faith?
– «You do not believe
in God!» he would sometimes exclaim, wearily,
at the end of a discussion.

Marie-Thérèse
Davoux, nicknamed Mademoiselle Maillard
(1766-1856)

Conceiving
of a lay cult, incarnated by the «godess
of Reason», the revolutionaries
transformed churches and cathedrals
into pagan temples if they did not raze
them to the ground. On September 21,
1792, the National Convention officially
succeeded the Legislative Assembly.
Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette, nicknamed
« Anaxagoras » (1763-1794),
a violent anti-Christian, was syndic-prosecutor
for the revolutionary Commune of Paris.
On 20 Brumaire Year II (November 10,
1793), he instituted the «festival
of Reason» In Paris, Mademoiselle
Maillard, a singer at the Opera, portrayed
the Goddess of Reason at Notre Dame
for the first time on 20 Brumaire Year
II (November 10, 1793). Draped in a
blue coat and wearing the red cap of
Liberty, she was carried in a chair
surrounded by garlands of oak leaves
and installed on the high altar of the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, a cathedral
that had been pillaged, devastated,
transformed, and decorated as a «temple
of Philosophy». For the occasion,
Chaumette pronounced a fiery discourse:
«The people have just made a sacrifice
to reason in the former metropolitan
church; they have just offered another
sacrifice in the sanctuary of the law.
We have not offered sacrifices to vain
images or inanimate idols. No, we have
chosen a masterpiece of nature to represent
[reason] and this sacred image has inflamed
all our hearts. One sole desire, one
single cry is heard everywhere. The
people have spoken: no more priests,
no other gods than those whom nature
offers us».

After
Napoleon re-established the Catholic faith
in 1802, the cult of the philosophers
and of the people of Paris, abandoned
by its worshippers, disappeared, far from
the incense and the acts of devotion that
had been lavished upon it. Davoux, weighed
down by her conscience and haunted by
the spectacle of the guillotine, escaped
the French capital to wander as a vagabond
in the provinces. Years later, the aged
Davoux, toothless, weak, bent, and leaning
on a stick, dressed in rags, saw the robe
of the curate of the area. She folded
her hands and, vowing her head, exclaimed:
«May Jesus Christ be praised!».
After having received the priest’s
benediction, she resumed her way. As on
other days, she went to beg a crust of
bread from a charitable family, then returned
to the solitude of her cottage, a miserable
room of four walls topped by a ruined
roof. It was said that for a number of
years one could see her frequently striking
her neck with her hand, as if struck by
the fatal blade. Did not Adolphe Thiers
remark that the mindless cult of the
goddess of Reason was born at the foot
of the scaffold? Consumed with dread,
crushed by this horrible memory for many
long years, she ended her days assisted
by Catholic generosity. At the final hour,
a priest was on hand to ease her last
moments. She died September 30, 1856,
at the age of ninety.

On the eve of Napoleon’s
coronation, December 1, 1804, M. de Ségur, organizer
of the ceremony, transmitted a question from Pope Pius
VII: «Will Their Majesties take communion?»,
and the Emperor responded that : «We
do not believe completely… but we believe too
much to risk a sacrilege». He thought of
his mother Laetitia, and certainly of Father Patrault.
A memory of his Brienne crossed his mind: about ten
years of age, punished for a stupid act, he knelt in
the refectory aisle. He struggles, tearfully, stubborn
crying in a nervous crisis: «One
kneels only before God, isn’t that so, Mama?!»
and he collapses… Father Patrault, who was eating
at the teachers’ table, arose, hurried to him,
and lifted him up…

They would meet one
more time in 1815, at Grenoble, after the return from
Elba. In his Memoirs, the valet Saint-Denis
– nicknamed Ali in honor of the Mameluke deserter
– heard bursts of speech and laughter in a neighboring
room. Then, the door opened and two men filled with
emotion surged through the door: the Emperor and a priest,
Father Patrault... who had traveled from Brienne to
see his «student» again.
One might cite innumerable moving anecdotes of this
period in the hero’s life!

Walking one evening
in the park of Malmaison with his friend Jean-Andoche
Junot, Napoleon heard a clock sounding the Angelus.
«That moves me»,
he said to the future duke. Their friendship dated to
the siege of Toulon in 1793. Under the inept government
of the Directory, the poorest Parisians died of famine
and searched through the garbage of the scandalous «nouveaux
riches» who had made their fortune by theft and
pillage. At that time, Bonaparte and Junot climbed to
the heights of the 6th Ward, in the «dumps»
on «paydays», carrying money and provisions
for the poor…

Before
Pius was carried off as a prisoner to
France by order of the Directory, the
revolutionaries «turned to the task
of robbing and pillaging Rome at will,
without even respecting the private apartment
of the Pope. Under the very eyes of Pius
VI, who was ill and bedridden, all his
vestments were stolen and even his ring
was taken from his finger. Not only did
they strip the Vatican of money, precious
objects, art treasures, paintings, papal
vestments, and tapestries, but they went
so far as to tear the locks from the doors.
Of the art objects they stole, 500 crates
were sent to Paris, weighing more than
30,000 quintals [3,000 tons.] In this
manner, the pillage surpassed anything
the Directory might have authorized, and
even the government’s advisors observed
that it is neither legal nor politically
prudent to push matters to such extremes:
everything must have a limit, even the
right of conquest». Mgr. Wilmoz
Tower, What the Biographers of Napoleon
Don’t Say.

General
Bonaparte
Painting by Louis Bacler D’Albe

«If
he had listened to the suggestions of
the Directory, the victor of Rivoli would
have gone to Rome to destroy the “roman
cult”, the“fanatism”,
and “the inquisition”. He
had only to give the order to overturn
and completely ruin the papal power. He
did not give that order. Not only did
he not give it, not only did he not involve
himself in negotiations, theology, and
the affairs of the Church, but he dared
to describe himself to the population
of believers as “protector of religion”
(…)
In the legations of the Holy See, he sought
out the Bishop of Immola, Cardinal Chiaramonti
who would be Pius VII, the pope of his
coronation. He went even farther. By an
act of flexible generosity, he refrained
from persecuting the emigrant French priests
who had taken refuge in the Papal States.
The policy that he applied in Italy he
seemed to have already intended for France».
Jacques de Bainville, Napoleón.

The drive for DECHRISTIANIZATION,
initiated by an active Free Masonry and fueled by ENGLISH
GOLD, was manifest not only in material destruction
and in massacres, but in all domains. The new «revolutionary
calendar» replaced the Gregorian calendar. No
more saints’ days, no more seven-day weeks, but
instead «decades», The Christian Sunday
(which represented DIES DOMINICI:
day of the Lord) was replaced by the «decadi».
Each month had three decades of ten days each, with
the remaining fifteen days becoming festivals. The poet
Fabre d’Eglantine was assigned to complete this
calendar, replacing the «former» saints
with the names of fruits and vegetables such as dandelion
and artichoke. The months carried poetic, descriptive
names such as «Prairial» (Meadow month)…
«Floréal» (Floral month)… «Ventôse»
(Windy month)… «Pluviose» (Rainy month)
etc.

If one wished to draw
up a balance sheet of this period – something
attempted by all serious historians – one would
be shocked. In the city of Lyon, for example, 12,000
out of 15,000 silk workshops disappeared. When the city
did not embraced the «Terror», it was CONDEMNED
TO DEATH by the Convention in the decree of October
12, 1793, of terrible memory: - THE
CITY OF LYON SHALL BE DESTROYED AND ITS NAME ERASED
FROM THE ROLL OF CITIES OF THE REPUBLIC.

Kidnapping
of Pope Pius VI by the Revolutionaries (February
20, 1798), followed by Death
of Pius VI
Drawings by Joseph-Toussaint Rossignon (1781-1862).

«They
forced this pour old man, 81 years of
age and gravely ill, to leave Rome and
cross the inaccessible Alps, sometimes
in a carriage and sometimes on foot, to
Valence, France. During the journey [the
Revolutionaries] treated him with great
severity because they were irritated to
see that everywhere he passed, the people
ran to see the Pope, salute him, and ask
for his blessing. At Valence he was lodged
in the citadel, where 32 priests were
confined as political prisoners. Although
they asked to be presented to the Pope,
they were not even allowed to see him.
While confined in this fortress, Pius
VI died as a prisoner of France on August
22, 1799, at the age of 82. His death
was the result of great fatigues and numerous
physical and mental sufferings. Even his
death did not appease the wrath of his
enemies; his few remaining clothes being
sold as «national property»;
His body was at first left uncovered and
then, enclosed in a lead coffin, it
was carried into a private house and placed
in a basement full of repellant mice that
surrounded him, constantly nosing everywhere.
Such was his end, in complete misery,
a prisoner of his enemies who knew the
pope whom even non-Catholics had compared
to Titus, whom they called delights
of the human genre». Mgr. Wilmoz
Tower, What the Biographers of Napoleon
Don’t Say.

Demolitions began in
Lyon at the same time that massacres became widespread.
On the Place des Bratteaux, the condemned who had been
crowded into cellars were dragged to the guillotine.
The entire place was red and sticky. Elsewhere, some
victims were cannonaded. The destruction of entire neighborhoods
ensued. This was a terrible vision for Bonaparte upon
his return from Egypt, in the midst of general acclaim.
The city he saved received him numerous times. In 1815,
when he returned from Elba, he received a delirious
welcome. His proclamation upon leaving the city ended
with the words: «People
of Lyon, I love you».

If I may be permitted
a digression to clarify matters, it was indeed true
that he: «reassembled France with a teaspoon».
(3)

The CONCORDAT
signed with the Catholic Church and the reformed college
of cardinals remained in effect until 1905, when it
was abrogated by the laws of Emile Combes, with the
drama of inventories and the exile of monastic communities.
But that is another story.

There was yet another
portion of the population, despised and persecuted until
the liberating actions of Napoleon I: the Jews. The
subject we are about to consider appears inNO
SCHOLARLY TEXTBOOK, yet it deserves
to be exposed once and for all(2).

Burial
Statue of Pius VI
Sculpture by Antonio Canova in the Basilica
of Saint Peter, Rome

On January 30, 1800,
122 days after the death of the pope
in the Citadel of Valence, Bonaparte
signed the order that permitted his
body to be interred in the Cemetery
of Saint Catherine, in that city. With
the Consulate installed, by a virtuous
and meritorious gesture the First Consul
reversed the despicable acts of the
Directory with regard to Pius VI. He
ordered the erection of a monument to
the memory of the Holy Father and directed
the transport of his remains to Rome,
where he was buried in the Basilica
of Saint Peter, near the sepulcher of
the apostle. There were plans to erect
a splendid mausoleum in honor of Pius
VI, but the pontiff had long before
expressed a wish to be represented on
his knees, in an attitude of prayer
before the confession of Saint Peter.
Antonio Canova faithfully respected
this wish in his work, which is characterized
at once by magnificence, fidelity, and
the sweetness of the subject, «without
counting the great accuracy of the resemblance»,
as Quatremere de Quincy observed. The
people of France, wishing to repair
the indignities of the past, retained
a relic of the sainted prisoner thanks
to the mediation of Monsignor Bécherel,
Bishop of Valence. In the era of the
Consulate, he claimed for his episcopal
church the heart and entrails of the
papal martyr. At the request of Francois
Cacault, the French minister to Rome,
his successor Pius VII acceded to this
desire. Returned to France, the heart
was deposited in the Cathedral of Valence,
on the altar of the chapel of the Holy
Thorn, until it could be placed in the
small mausoleum built to receive it.

Statue
of Pope Pius VI by
Canova

Napoleon’s
first contact with the Jews occurred during his first
Italian campaign, at Ancone. Upon his entry into the
city, he saw among the crowd some people wearing a yellow
star on their coats. «What
is that?» He asked. «They are the
Jews, General» was the reply. He had the stars
removed and liberated the Jews from their ghettos in
Venice, Verona, Padua, and later Rome. Then, in 1798,
the occupation of Malta during the voyage to Egypt gave
him the opportunity to permit the Jews of that island
to build a synagogue. On Easter Sunday, 1799, before
the fortress of Acre, he issued a proclamation recognizing
the Jewish right to an independent state.

His efforts in France
were far from easy. Like the Abbot Gregory before the
Legislative Assembly in 1791, in the fact of a stubborn
opposition Bonaparte had to confront some very anti-Semitic
adversaries. Marshal Francois Christophe Kellermann
and Francois-René de Chateaubriand were enraged.
The Emperor freed the Jews by a decree of 1806 and then
convoked the GRAND SANHEDRIN of
1807 and again on July 26, 1808, the latter meeting
in the Hotel de Ville of Paris – 111 representatives
from all of France and northern Italy. For this, Napoleon
had the distressing surprise of having Tsar Alexander
describe him as «el Antichrist and ennemy
of God»! (3)
And the Holy Synod of Moscow declared: «In order
to destroy the basis of the churches of Christianity,
the Emperor of the French has invited to his capital
all the Jewish synagogues. His project is to create
a new Hebrew Sanhedrin, the same infamous tribunal that
condemned the Lord Jesus to the cross».

The
Grand Sanhedrin, which met from February
9 to March 9, 1807

In 2008, we are still
staggered by such an attitude, we who are legitimately
imbued with the ideas of liberty and equality for all
men. The Emperor of the French professed such ideas
naturally. At the Hôtel de Ville, he declared:
«my sole desire is to make
the Jews of France into useful citizens, to reconcile
their beliefs with their duty as Frenchmen, and to eliminate
the reproaches that have been brought against them.
I wish that all men living in France might be equal
and might benefit from all our laws».

Yet, he was acutely
aware of his role as pacifier and reconciler of a society
unbalanced by a bloody decade, a society with which
he had to compromise temporarily to appease dangerous
currents. On March 17, 1808, having finally achieved
an alliance with the Russian tsar – we see how
complex everything was for him – Napoleon agreed
to publish a decree that limited the liberties accorded
to the Jews. This was deeply troubling to his conscience.
Thus when, on April 11, 1808, he received a Jewish delegation
from the provinces to present the remonstrances of their
fellow citizens, he reversed himself. Without annulling
the March 17 decree, he relaxed its restrictions first
in thirteen departments and eventually in the entire
Empire. In 1811, the situation returned to normal, and
the Jews could again enter any line of work.

The Imperial Almanac
for 1811 mentioned that the Jewish religion was one
of the three official religions of France. Following
his heartfelt beliefs, he later commented on Saint Helena,
to his physician Barry O’Meara: «I
wished to liberate the Jews to make them into complete
citizens. They were to benefit from the same advantages
as the Catholics and Protestants. I insisted that they
be treated as BROTHERS, because
we are all the heirs of Judaism».

Yet, entangled in an
interminable war that the Europe of the Ancien Regime,
led by Britain, conducted against the new France through
seven successive coalitions, the Emperor of the French
surrounded his state with a protective glacis, which
he modernized…
Thus the French people of 2008, having never been taught
this, do not realize that in Europe, «all the
Jews saw Napoleon as their Messiah». It was an
enemy of the French, the Austrian minister Klemens von
Metternich, who made this observation. Everywhere, the
Jews built bonfires with the gates and barriers that
had enclosed their former «ghettos». Yet,
in 1815, the ghettos and yellow stars reappeared!

There is no more appropriate
way to end these revealing lines than by extracts from
the «Prayer of the Children of Israel, Citizens
of France and of Italy» composed for the Emperor
Napoleon the Great in the month of Mar-Cheshvan, 5667
(Year 1807).

We
are so happy and our life has improved so much
since You placed Napoleon the Great on the thrones
of France and Italy. No other man is so worthy
of ruling nor merits so many honors and recognitions;
he leads the peoples with a benevolent authority
and all the goodness of his heart.
When the kings of the earth engaged him in battle,
You, O God, were prodigal in Your benefits to
him — You protected him, You helped him
to overcome his enemies. They asked for mercy
and he, in his generosity, granted it to them.
Today the kings are again in league to violate
their treaties and replace peace with the blood
of war. Armies have assembled to combat the
Emperor; here our enemies advance while our
master with his powerful army is prepared to
repel aggression.
O Lord, Master of grandeur, force, power, and
beauty, we implore You to hold Yourself close
to him. Help him, support him, protect him,
and save him from all evil. Say to him “I
am your Savior” and give him Your light
and Your truth to guide him.
Please, thwart the plots of his enemies. Let
the decisions of the Emperor reveal Your splendor.
Reinforce and strengthen his legions and his
allies, so that all his movements might be crowned
with intelligence and success.
Give him victory and oblige his enemies to bow
down before him and ask peace from him. This
peace he will grant them because he seeks only
peace between all nations.
God of mercy, Master of peace, implant peaceful
sentiments in the hearts of the kings of earth
for the greater good of all humanity. Do not
permit the sword to come among us, spilling
the blood of our brothers. Make all nations
live in eternal peace and prosperity.
Amen.

Wouldn’t it be
appropriate for French people to question the sectarian
and erroneous history of France they have been taught
in school?
All the synagogues prayed for him. Here is the conclusion,
in the Vaucluse, of the «Canticle»
composed by Moses Milliaud, «Deputy of the
Department of the Vaucluse to the Assembly of French
citizens professing the belief of Moses» (Paris:
The Imperial Press, 1806) (4):

Napoleon! The
Lord anointed you to bandage the wounds of
those whose hearts are broken. All my fears
are calmed. He who had performed prodigies
greater than those of Cyrus will also perform
miracles of goodness for us. The remnants
of the house of Judea may put out deep roots
and cover themselves with abundant fruit.
Oh! Would that the Almighty, terrible in his
deeds, might give me a tongue that could do
justice to celebrating your praises in the
songs that will be passed down to future centuries,
as the oracle of Isaiah has immortalized the
name of Cyrus!
Yet, today I am forced to express my wishes
in another language and to express my ideas
in a foreign tongue. No seraphim have touched
my lips nor purified them with a burning coal.
How, then, can I make myself heard, when since
my youth I have never been skilled in writing
nor have I been taught by learned instructors?
When I was in my native land, four years ago,
by the choice of the nation you, O Napoleon,
were elected to govern for the duration of
your life. When the joyous cries that announced
this happy news reached my ears, my soul went
into transports. Enthusiasm seized me, and
I began to sing of the great actions of the
hero that had spread his name throughout the
world. How can I remain silent today, in the
bosom of the city where Your Majesty resides,
when I take such pleasure in your presence?
What more can I add to express the emotions
that fill me?
There has never been a man like you in the
history of the world. May all your enterprises
be crowned by the greatest success!
May Heaven, granting my prayers, give you
long live and may the children of Israel,
subject to your laws, be inundated in a river
of peace!

They had been nothing,
scattered to all nations of the world, NOT
EVEN HAVING A CIVIL STATUS, decimated by bloody
pogroms in many countries, especially in Eastern Europe,
and suddenly they were free citizens!

Let
us cross the years and the oceans. We are on Saint Helena,
the «little island», as the schoolboy of
Brienne had written in his geography notebook at the
end of a chapter on the British Empire – an island
that held to ransom all the foreign warships cruising
on all the oceans of the world. Doctor O’Meara,
cited above, converted by the natural goodness and the
luminous intelligence of his illustrious patient, was
the first to issue two thick volumes of « Memoirs
» on Napoleon’s captivity. An Irish officer
of the Royal Navy, he was sent home by the governor,
Hudson Lowe, at the order of Henry, Lord Bathurst, the
colonial minister. Describing the living conditions
of the French at Longwood – tarpaper roofs leaking
during the tropical rains, an invasion of enormous rats,
etc (5) – O’Meara’s
two volumes of Memoirs opened the eyes of the world.
His recall in 1818 had a precedent in the case of Doctor
Warden, who treated Napoleon on board HMS «Northumberland»,
and who was returned to London immediately and demoted.
There was also a third case of Dr. John Stokoe, a physician
on board one of the warships cruising around the island,
who was called in as an emergency measure when the Emperor
had a crisis of acute hepatitis. (6)
Sent home and demoted, he also had to return
to London... and moved to the War Office!

During
his interviews with O’Meara, the Emperor
said one day (May 6, 1816): «After
God, you owe your duty to your country, your sovereign,
and then your fellow men», which
brings us to the heart of the subject.

The evenings were
long at Longwood. The sentinels, guarding the
entrance to the garden, kept close guard on the
walls of the house, going to bed only at sunrise.
An English officer was also in a room, two steps
from the Emperor, and had to report to the governor
every day…

Napoleon, an insatiable
reader, commented on those readings for his friends.
One evening, he took up the Bible. Let us turn
the narration over to him:

– «I
believe that I know men, and I tell you that Jesus
Christ was not a man». And
another evening:
– «It
is true that Jesus Christ presents a series of
mysteries to our faith, without giving any reason
except: I am God. Yet, once you accept the divine
character of Christ, Christianity presents itself
with the precision and clarity of algebra…
Supported by the Bible, the Evangelist is enlightened
and his dogmas follow like the carefully-forged
links of a chain. The world is an enigma. Yet,
if you accept the divinity of Jesus Christ, you
will have an admirable solution to the history
of man. The Evangelist has a secret virtue that
acts on the understanding and charms the heart.
This is not a book, it is a living being, an action,
a power that invades all and opposes its extension»…
(1821).

The
Pinnacle of LibertySatirical caricature by James
Gillray, 1793

This
famous English image belongs to the
series «The zenith of
French glory». In this
perspective view, the famous cartoonist
denounced the excesses committed by
the revolutionaries under the banner
of Liberty and Equality,
as well as the murder of «religion,
justice, loyalty…»....”
Later, in 1799, the worker who closed
the casket of Pius VI exclaimed: «the
last pope is dead»; «the
papacy is finished and the Catholic
Church is ended». Yet, the English
Catholics sang in their churches:
«Thrones and crowns may
perish, Kingdoms rise and wane, But
Peter firm and alert steering the
rudder, The centuries will always
look at». While it was
true that Pius VI was dead, the pope
was not dead.

In reading these lines,
these words pronounced so close to his death, I thought
of Blaise Pascal. These words reflected those Napoleon
spoke to the Count de Segur on the even of his coronation:
«The superiority of reason
gives faith».

The day after the death
of his childhood friend, Franceschi Cipriani, at Longwood,
he appealed to the Anglican pastor of Jamestown in 1818:
«Where is his soul?
The Emperor asked himself. Perhaps
it has gone to Rome to see his wife and child, before
undertaking the long and final journey».

In Rome his mother,
Laetitia, and his uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, were
disturbed. Letters were are and always opened by the
British cabinet. Shamefully misled by an emissary of
Metternich, they believed that Napoleon was no longer
on Saint Helena, that he had been delivered. Pope Pius
VII knew the truth, and his message to the Congress
of Vienna showed both his heart and his lucidity:

– «Napoleon
is unhappy, very unhappy; we have forgotten
his offenses(7) THE
CHURCH MUST NEVER FORGET HIS SERVICES. He accomplished
for his see that which no one else, in his position,
would have had the courage to attempt. We must
not be ungrateful to him. To know that this
unfortunate man is suffering for us is already
almost a torture from the moment when he asked
for a priest to reconcile him with God. We would
not, we could not, we should not participate
in anything of the evil that he endures. On
the contrary, we desire to the very bottom of
our heart that his condition be alleviated and
that his life should be made easier. Let us
ask this favor of the Prince Regent of Great
Britain».

No response, obviously.

Pope
Pius VII, by August Garneray

What a deception when
a small group debarked on Saint Helena in 1818!

Doctor Francesco Antommachi
was not really a qualified physician, being only a dissector
of the Academy of Medicine in Florence. Of the two priests,
simply and good, the Abbots Vignali and Buonavita, the
latter, weakened and crippled, had to re-embark for
Europe. When the Abbot Vignali said his first Sunday
mass at Longwood, the Emperor had a moment of joy: «We
have again become Christians», he said.

Between the departure
of O’Meara in 1818 and the arrival of Antommachi
in 1819, he had been without a physician. He had to
call on Major Archibald Arnott when his physical sufferings
became intolerable. He complained bitterly of his treatment
by the British government. Yet Majors Arnott, Harrison,
and Reade, who followed the state of his health until
1821 and sent their required reports to the governor,
dared write: «Doctor Arnott thinks that the General’s
malady is not serious». And Harrison wrote to
Sir George Bingham: «I begin to believe that this
entire story of his illness is simple play-acting».
Britain had no limits in its shame.

To whom should he turn
if not to God?
During the final months, he followed the mass from his
camp bed; the door to the adjoining room was opened
and the two Bertand children, in liturgical vestments,
served the altar.

Brith
of the King of Rome (Napoleon
II)Romantic lithograph.

«
Make him a
good Frenchman and a good Christian: you
can’t have one without the other »,
said the Emperor Napoleon
to his son’s governess, Madame de
Montesquiou.

He was forbidden any
correspondence with his wife and son. His nights were
populated with dreams in which he attempted to take
them into his arms and they escaped and vanished…
When he awoke, it was to the sounds of steps and orders
of the sentinels and the scuttling of rats between the
boards of the walls. Sometimes, when he tried to rise,
he fell, rolling on the ground moaning, crying of physical
and psychological pain…

– « France
gave me the imperial crown, and Italy the iron crown.
England gave me the most precious crown of all, that
of the Savior — a crown of thorns
».

Then there is his testament,
written while seated on his camp bed with a board on
his knees:

– «I
die in the Catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion,
the same in which I was born more than fifty years ago.
I desire that my ashes remain on the banks of the Seine,
in the midst of the French people whom I have loved
so much…»

In this document, he remembered everyone, even the most
humble servants; the document is now a treasure of the
National Archives. He entrusted it to the Abbot Vignali
under the seal of the confessional. On May 5, 1821,
at 5:49 p.m., he rendered his great soul to God. The
handkerchief that wiped away his two final tears would
be conserved in his family and then at the Invalides.
On the death register of the Anglican Church of Jamestown,
between the names of two slaves, either Black of Chinese,
one may read:

« General Buonaparte:
May 5, 1821 »

Under a nameless stone,
his body was found intact in 1840. Longwood again became
a dilapidated farm.

When the news of his
death reached London in July, the liberals—the
well-known “Whigs”—urged the public
to wear mourning for the hero. This movement was led
by Lord and Lady Holland, who had attempted to help
him so often. They invited the admirers of the hero
to wear black watered crepe, knotted around the arm.
Those who did so were legion. In Parliament, Lord Holland
pummeled his adversaries: - «Fear that his fate
will be compared to that of Joan of Arc».
Is this known?

The
15th of December 1840, at Les Invalides, Abp.
Affre, a future victim of the 1848 barricades,
says the «Office of the martyrs» in
front of his coffin.
Is this known?

In Washington,
D.C., a stone coming from the tomb of Saint Helena
was sealed into the base of the monument to the
Union.
Is this known?

In Alise-Sainte-Reine,
near Dijon—the Alesia of ancient times—there
stands a statue to the hero of the Gauls, Vercingetorix
(8). In its base are boxes
of earth from Rouen, Verdun, and Saint Helena.
Is this known?

Let us conclude
with two remarkable quotations that are almost
unknown in France?

George Gordon
BYRON:
« I, a foreigner to France, a compatriot
of Napoleon’s tormenters, I wished to scatter
flowers on his tomb to conceal the opprobrium
of my country ».

Abp.
Denis-Auguste Affre (1793-1848)Archbishop of Paris

And above all Ludwig
van BEETHOVEN,
who confided to his friend Peters (in the Conversation
Notebooks): “He [Napoleon] had the sense of art
and of science; he DETESTED SUPERSTITION.
He was the protector of RIGHTS
and LAWS. I could not otherwise
have supported him. PRESENTLY, I THINK
OTHERWISE».
This is key testimony of which the authors of scholarly
textbooks in France are completely ignorant.
Is this known?

In
1951, at the sanctuary of Saint Anne, in Jerusalem,
the 130th anniversary of the Emperor’s
death was commemorated in the presence of the french
clergymen and the representatives of the oriental rites.
Is this known?

And each
Sunday, up to 2008 (9) and forever,
the High Mass of Notre Dame in Paris ends, to the sound
of great organs, with a prayer for «the Emperor
Napoleon I.»
Is this known?

Finally, let
me allow the Emperor to speak for himself. In
the course of conversations and evening readings
at Longwood, talking with his last loyal followers
and sometimes with Bible in hand, someone asked
him: «What was the happiest day of your
life?».
And he, without hesitation, instead of citing
his marriage, his coronation, the battle of
Austerlitz, or the birth of his son, replied:
«the day of my First
Communion» (10).
Is this known?

The loop is
closed. We rejoin the unique years of history,
at the start of this paper. What a discovery
for our good Frenchmen who have been so disgracefully
misled!

Renée
Casin.

The
Chapel of Brienne

NOTES:

1) Among the provisions
of the Concordat of 1801 was the nomination of bishops—the
artisans of reconciliation and national pacification—by
the state; the Pope would confer
spiritual investiture. The dioceses were reorganized
to align with the organization of the departments of
France.
2) [To complement this subject at greater length,] I
refer you to the small study that I published in the
periodical Chrétiens
Magazine (No. 177), which prompted numerous
readers to comment indignantly “No one ever told
us this at school!”
3) In regard to the labels such as “the Antichrist,”
“The Beast of the Apocalypse, and “the Corsican
Devil,” names so frequently thrown at Napoleon,
the Emperor’s actions in favor of the Jewish people
arousing a true offensive in the international press.
A good example of this can be found in an article in
the journal L’Ambigu: “Will
he [Napoleon} have the effrontery to present
himself as the Messiah for whom they [the Jews] have
waited so long? Only time will tell. We can see that
this Antichrist is fighting against the eternal decrees
of the Divinity; this would be the last act of his diabolical
existence.” The rancor that the Spanish clergy
held against Napoleon is well known, but it was in Russia
that the reactions were the most filled with hatred
and violence, even before 1812. The Sanhedrin had not
yet even convened with the Holy Synod of Moscow sent
a circular to all the Orthodox churches in the Russian
Empire: “In order to destroy the basis of
the churches of Christianity, the Emperor of the French
has invited to his capital all the Jewish synagogues.
His project is to create a new Hebrew Sanhedrin, the
same infamous tribunal that condemned the Lord Jesus
to the cross. And now he dares to contemplate reuniting
all the Jews whom the anger of God dispersed across
the fact of the earth. He will hurl them [the Jews]
to destroy the Church of Christ, for, with an indescribable
audacity that surpasses his other crimes, they will
proclaim the Messiah in the person of Napoleon.”
4) Document furnished by Mr.
Ben Weider, honorary colonel in the Canadian army,
who has founded branches of the International Napoleonic
Society in 35 nations of the world.
5) Rats chewed Marshal Bertrand’s hand while he
slept. Six or seven were killed each day.
6) On board the Conqueror, 112 out of 600 were affected.
7) In 1809, threatened by the British navy at Rome,
General Radet, without orders from Napoleon, transported
Pius VII from the Vatican. The Emperor moved the pope
first to Savona and then to Fontainebleau. There, the
pope eventually disavowed the opposition of several
cardinals and the signature of the Concordat of 1813.
Napoleon did not allow him to return to Rome until 1814.
Pius VII had refused to participate in the Continental
Blockade plan. Yet, in 1807, the Royal Navy had bombarded
Copenhagen, causing 500 deaths at a time when Denmark
was neutral.
8) Visible at a distance from the French high speed
train (T.G.V.).
9) Year in which this article was written.
10) Napoleon’s First Communion took place on May
14, 1783, at Brienne, and the service was conducted
by Abbot Geoffroi. His Conversation followed on May
15 before the Archbishop of Paris, M. Antoine-Eléonore-Léon
de Juigné. This occasion gave rise to a memorable
episode that deserves to be retold here. Not understanding
the little Napoleon when he pronounced his name in Italian
(“Napoleone”), the archbishop had him repeat
the name several times. Eventually the child replied,
somewhat irritated, “Monsieur,
there are more saints than there are days in the year,
and mine is not in the calendar.” The First
Consul undoubtedly was recalling this event when, as
his promised Pope Pius VII to re-establish the Catholic
faith and the Gregorian calendar in France, he asked
his Holiness to include Saint Napoleon in the liturgy.
Pius VII effectively instituted the day of Saint Napoleon
on August 15, the Emperor’s birthday as well as
the day of the Assumption of the Virgin. On this subject,
it was well known that the Emperor Napoleon often practiced
a Mediterranean custom to protect himself from bad luck;
he would make the sign of the cross twice before undertaking
great things. Several witnesses noted having seen Napoleon
make this sign before beginning a battle. What is less
often known (and said) is that an icon of the Virgin
Mary accompanied Napoleon every night when he went to
sleep, placed behind his bedstead. One of these Marial
images was once displayed to the public in the Chapel
of Charity on the island of Elba.